President Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency last Thursday. Unfortunately, his actions were much more talk than walk. He vowed to alleviate the scourge of drug addiction from the country, but hasn’t released any additional funds to deal with the crisis. The designation of a public health crisis itself does grant the federal government some freedom with funds to start tackling this issue, so it is a step in the right direction.

If you are like me, you can’t wrap your head around the ~90 deaths per day statistic. It seems like too big a number to be real. When faced with overwhelmingly negative facts, I’ve noticed that people would much rather ignore the problem instead of learning about it and making it real for them. In that vein, everyone should read this askReddit post where people share how the crisis has impacted them. Seeing stats, reading articles, and watching the Trump’s speech helped, but nothing has hit home to me just how complicated and prevalent this crisis is than reading first hand accounts.